On Friday 30 July, surrounded by the beautiful painting and textile work of Sue Marsden and Sophie Parr in Castle Park Arts Centre's Gallery 1, singer-songwriter Gus Glynn will be treating audiences to his new one-man show, Routes to Classics.

Originally from Ireland, Gus is a classically trained fingerstyle guitarist and regular performer at Castle Park Arts Centre.

In Routes to Classics, he traces the development of the music we love today from its roots in traditional folk and blues.

"When I came to England in my late twenties I began to realise that I missed having folk music around me," Gus tells me.

"In Galway, where I grew up, you're surrounded by it all the time and as a kid I didn't really notice it.

To ease his homesickness for the music of his childhood, Gus began visiting folk clubs. "I got to really like the stuff I heard," he says, "and I realised that some of the songs that I thought were Irish turned out to be English or Scottish and vice versa.

"A lot of American music, including blues, borrows heavily from that, although there are obviously African influences as well.

"Traces of musical traditions from the British Isles also generated what we now know as country, and even bluegrass, which is really close to traditional Irish music."

Fascinated by this cross-continental flow of the same melodic and rhythmic patterns, Gus is now distilling these centuries of musical evolution into one evening.

Combining musical performance and storytelling, Routes to Classics will track the folk tradition from its Irish, English and Scottish origins all the way through to its whispered presence in contemporary and modern classics.

Songs from the likes of Leonard Cohen, Carole King, the Arctic Monkeys and Amy Winehouse will sit alongside Gus's own mellifluous guitar music, which charts his decades-long journey through genre and style.

After the sterile separation of the Covid-19 pandemic, Gus is really looking forward to being able to properly share his work with live audiences once again.

He tells me that returning to in-person performances has been "really good. It's like being able to breathe again, a whole new lease of life.

"Over lockdown I was writing a bit and making some home videos of acoustic pieces, but I also tried to do some online open mics and they just didn't work for me at all, because performing is all about that communication with the audience and that feedback."

However, since returning to the stage, Gus says that, "the public response has been great: people are obviously thirsty for live music."

And their desire will certainly be satisfied in Routes to Classics, which promises to be a light-hearted, fun and friendly evening of music that is sometimes familiar, sometimes unknown, but always beautiful.

Routes to Classics will begin at 7pm on Friday 30 July, lasting until around 10pm. A bar will be available for ticket-holders to buy refreshments. Tickets can be bought from Castle Park Arts Centre or by calling 01928 735832.

For further details about the show, head over to the Castle Park Arts Centre website.

To find out more about Gus and his music, please visit his website.